Too Blind to Know Your Best
by LifeIChose
Summary: When it all comes down, we're cycling trivialities.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own VD or any of these characters.

**Author's Note**: This is an idea that took over my head and wouldn't let go. It could have been a story but I know I don't have the time to commit to that so here is a very long one-shot.

Also, thank you so much to whomever nominated me for the Bamon awards a while ago.

Happy Holidays everyone! Happy Reading.

* * *

><p><strong>The Fallout<strong>

"You and Damon?" Elena asks her, brown eyes wide and disbelieving.

Bonnie bites the inside of her cheek. "It's not like _me and Damon_," she says. "I'm not sure what this is."

It's not a lie. She's really not sure how it started but somewhere between Jeremy kissing Anna and Stefan regaining his humanity, her and Damon have become something. From enemies to reluctant partners to reluctant lovers, their relationship has changed drastically over the past two years to where they are now: indefinable and conflicted.

She could love him, she thinks sometimes. When they are in her bed, limbs extending into each other's space so much that she can't tell where she ends and where he begins.

But then she runs into Jeremy with eyes so earnest and full of regret.

And she sees the way Damon still looks at Elena when he thinks no one is watching.

"You care about him," Elena states. "You wouldn't be doing this if you didn't."

Bonnie shrugs. "Turns out Damon is not the only one who is good at being self-destructive."

* * *

><p>He waits for the world to implode when Elena and Stefan stumble upon them in the Salvatore library. It is one reckless moment in the never-ending battle against Klaus, the vampire with a thousand lives.<p>

Stefan looks shocked with an expression that Damon has not seen on his brother in a long, long time. Elena looks the same but there is something else there. He recognizes it: jealousy.

Bonnie and Elena go outside to talk leaving Stefan and him alone.

He waits for the lecture and Stefan does not disappoint.

"Be careful, Damon. Whatever you think you are doing…Bonnie is not the casual fling type."

"Could have fooled me," Damon says.

Stefan furrows his brow. "I'm right and you know it."

* * *

><p>"How did it go?" he asks when Bonnie comes back into the house alone.<p>

"She's confused and she's upset. She doesn't understand how this happened or why we kept it from her."

"I'm not sure what the big deal is. This isn't about her," he says.

Bonnie raises an eyebrow. "Isn't it?"

Damon returns his attention to his bourbon. Before he was sure it wasn't but now with Elena's expression imprinted in his mind, he does not quite know anymore.

"I told you before it wasn't and I'm telling you again."

Bonnie sighs as she recalls that moment. "Honestly, Damon, I didn't really believe you then and I don't believe you now."

Damon's eyes darken as he looks down into Bonnie's misty green ones.

"What have the past couple of months been about?"

"We've been kidding ourselves. You are doomed to love a girl that is in love with your brother and I'm doomed to be a convenient rebound."

He's in front of her before she can reach the door. "You were more than that to me."

She thinks she believes him, the way he is looking at her now, but she has believed him before. "Maybe, but it isn't enough. I didn't want to be second best to a ghost and I won't be second best to a doppelganger."

* * *

><p><strong>The Beginning<strong>

She can't put a name to the feelings that stirred in her when she found Elena and Damon together. They hadn't been doing much more than looking into each others eyes but it had felt as intimate a moment as if she had walked in on them making love.

She had rushed to the boardinghouse to let them know that Stefan had stopped Damon from killing Klaus to save his life.

As a result of dealing with ripper Stefan, supernatural ghosts along with hybrid mayhem, Bonnie and Damon had become closer to the point that she had admitted to him last week that he had become a friend.

Now leaning against the door, her heart constricting painfully, she shakes her head to rid the thought that her feelings have to do with more than friendship.

With effort, she moves away from the door and takes one last look at the boardinghouse.

* * *

><p>"You are not supposed to come here without me," Damon says sliding into the stool next to her. "And you are definitely not supposed to be drinking."<p>

"A lesson on doing the right thing coming from Damon Salvatore to me, that is ironic."

She winces slightly when she hears how she sounds. It's bitter and angry. She doesn't want to be this girl.

"Don't worry, it is just one drink," she offers with a smile. "Which I am drinking very slowly."

He gives her a long, appraising look before signaling to the bartender.

Once his own scotch is in front of him, he turns to her. "I felt you at my house earlier."

Bonnie coils her fingers around her glass and fixes her gaze on the liquor bottles in front of her. "Oh?"

"Nothing is happening between Elena and me."

"It's really none of my business, whatever you and Elena do or don't do."

They are both silent for a while, occasionally sipping their drinks, when Damon says. "I've changed. I'm not that guy trying to steal his brother's girlfriend."

Bonnie turns to face him surprised. She's surprised that he cares enough about what she thinks to say it and that she believes him.

"I know," she says. "I wouldn't be friends with you if I thought you were the same guy."

Damon's blue eyes lock with hers.

She stares back and tries to read what he is thinking.

"Well friend," he says. "Would you like a ride home?"

His face doesn't change much, other than a slight tilt of the mouth, but Bonnie understands acutely that if she leaves with him, it will be more than about friendship.

She swallows the last of her scotch. "Okay."

* * *

><p>"Now, that was fun," Damon says as he rolls of her. "I did not think you were capable of making such sounds or moving your-"<p>

"Stop," Bonnie interrupts. "Can we just not?"

Damon grins enjoying how suddenly shy Bonnie seems when minutes ago she had been riding him like a seasoned carefree cowgirl.

He props himself up on one elbow and drops a kiss on her forehead. "There is nothing to be embarrassed about. You are beautiful."

Bonnie's blush deepens but she reaches out and kisses him on the lips.

"Seriously," he says after she pulls away. "Are you okay with what happened here tonight?"

"I don't know," Bonnie answers honestly. "What was this?"

Damon isn't sure either and he says as much even though he knows that answer won't help Bonnie's doubt and confusion.

"Was this about Elena and whatever I walked in on earlier?"

"No," Damon answers immediately. He turns Bonnie's head and leaves his hand under her chin so that she is looking directly into his eyes. "This isn't about Elena," he says. "What happened tonight, it was about you and me."

Bonnie searches his eyes for a lie or a joke and there is neither; just intense sincerity. There are doubts lingering in her mind but the way he is looking at her…It's not like Jeremy used to look at her, with honest adoration. It is a deeper look that is almost unnerving.

She is not sure what the look is but it leaves her feeling wanted.

"You are right," she says.

Damon lifts an eyebrow in question. "About?"

"This was fun."

He grins and is in top of her before she can even blink. "The fun isn't over yet."

She laughs genuinely and as Damon lowers his lips to her neck, her doubts disappear.

* * *

><p><strong>The End <strong>

"Hey, where is everyone?" Bonnie asks coming into the Gilbert's kitchen.

"Caroline called. Her and Tyler are running late," Damon says. "Ric went to get some liquor and Jeremy drove Elena to the store. Apparently she forgot something."

"Oh," Bonnie answers suddenly feeling awkward at the realization that it is just her and Damon. It's the first time in months. Since Klaus came back and disappeared with Stefan; since their ending without an end; since him and Elena and her and Jeremy."

"Well it smells good in here."

Damon fixes mocking blue eyes on her. "Small talk, really?"

"I knew this dinner was a bad idea," Bonnie says, annoyed. "It's just so stupid, all of us sitting around pretending like we're really still friends."

Damon is surprised. He completely agrees but never would have thought Bonnie would say it out loud. They have all become so adept at lies and omissions.

"Why did you come?"

Bonnie smirks. "Same reason you did: it can be impossible to say no to a pleading Gilbert."

Damon looks away from her.

"What?"

"I still can't believe you got back together with that kid."

Bonnie is silent as she attempts to get in control of her increasing anger.

"Oh come on, witchy, let it out," Damon taunts.

He wants her wrath; her aneurysms. He knows he deserves it; feels it every time he sees her across a crowded room, each night sleeping next to Elena; every time word reaches him about Stefan.

"Fuck you, Damon. You are not worth my magic, you are not worth my anger," she hurls the words at him. "You are not worth shit."

The words hit him and they hurt more than her frying his brain could.

The room stills; the only noise is Bonnie's ragged breathing.

Damon's face becomes blank before he attempts to leave the kitchen. Bonnie stops him by placing an invisible wall in front of him.

He turns around fast. "I thought I wasn't worth your magic."

"I didn't mean that," Bonnie says softly. "I am mad about how we ended or rather didn't but we are with the people who we were always meant to be with."

"I thought you didn't want to be with someone who would choose a ghost over you."

"And I thought you were past chasing your brother's girlfriend," Bonnie retorts. "I guess we both said things that we didn't mean."

It is silent again as Damon contemplates Bonnie's words. He loves Elena, he's sure he must, but that time with Bonnie; he thinks that was when he was happiest. Even in the midst of all the shit with Klaus, he was the most carefree then.

"I could have loved you," he says without thinking. He hears Bonnie's sharp intake of breath and meets her eyes.

They are wide and startled and oh so bright.

Bonnie laughs. It is short, strangled and humourless. "I used to think that back then too. That if it wasn't for Elena or for Jeremy, that I could have loved you, and then after everything I realized that I had loved you."

Damon is sure that if he still had a heart, at that moment it would have stopped beating.

"But I was right about history repeating itself," Bonnie continues. "You and Elena were inevitable and in a weird way so are me and Jeremy."

"Maybe you are right," Damon says after a minute. Because now that he has Elena, he can't really imagine giving her up but talking with Bonnie again has reawakened feelings that he had pushed aside. "But, you and me, we are not over."

Bonnie sighs. "No, I guess we're not."

* * *

><p><em>Fin. <em>

**Song Credit**: Jose Gonzalez: Cycling Trivialities.


End file.
